Big breakfast at Two Parrots Perch & Grill

There aren't a lot of places open on New Year's Day for breakfast. Not a 10am brunch, but early morning breakfast. Like 8:30 am early. The open-early-close-late Two Parrots Perch & Grill was one of the few places open.

It was actually nice to walk down a basically deserted Granville Street, and sit anywhere you like in a large pub. The only other patrons were a couple of people who seemed mostly interested in the soccer game on the televisions in Two Parrots Perch & Grill, and a handful of police officers. Everyone seemed to be regulars and knew the lone morning server by name. Whatever you may think of the seedy side of Granville Street, it's probably a pretty safe place to eat if it's frequented by cops!
The decor inside has an understated rainforest theme that you will probably miss if you're not really looking around. What mostly jumps out at you is pub and sports bar. The menu is pretty plain, with lots of basically safe choices.

For breakfast, I went with the "El Muchacho", a large wrap that comes with a side of hash browns. There are two wraps available for breakfast, and basically they are just filled with eggs, enough cheese to make itself known, and a sprinkle of other stuff you won't make out unless you're paying attention. There's the Senorita, and for 50 cents more you get chorizo and banana peppers. I recommend you skip this because the egg and cheese pretty much smothers everything else. The tangy heat of the banana peppers hits you once in a while, but you can get more or less the same effect for free by asking for hot sauce. Because the egg content makes this somewhat bland, get the hot sauce.

The hash browns are shredded potato and not mushy. About half of it is seared to a nice browness, the rest is cooked but still white. You get about a cup and a half worth of potato there.

Overall, my El Muchacho wasn't anything I'd particularly recommend as a must-eat, but whatever you want to say about boring breakfasts (hey, at least it wasn't just eggs and toast!), you can't argue with the portion size here. The hash browns combined with a big wrap that's the size of a medium to large burger (but with more filling than a burger) you've got yourself a hefty working man's breakfast at $9.75 (almost $11 after 12% tax). It's really more brunch sized than breakfast and it kept me going all day from 8:30am till dinner at around 6pm. I skipped lunch and even at 6pm I wasn't really feeling very hungry.